I cannot understand how Fiji came so close to winning that match. Don't let the final score fool you, this was mighty close, and but for a couple of basic errors in the Springbk 22, the Pacific Islanders would have been leading going into the final 10 minutes.

It would appear that all the established rules of how to play rugby should now be thrown out of the window.

You no longer need the following ingredients to play rugby at the highest level, apparently:

1/ Superiority in the scrum. The Springboks were vastly superior in this area, but Fiji were still able to get set-piece ball to feed their backs.

2/ A functional lineout. South Africa had clearly cracked the code the Fijians were using today, and were capable of stealing the ball nearly every time.
Fiji even had to resort to the crooked throw in order to attempt to keep the ball.

3/ Precise and deep kicking from hand. The islanders were losing roughly 20 metres every time they tried to exchange kicks with the opposition.

These are the basic building blocks that rugby teams are made of. Fiji have none of these ingredients and yet still found themselves within touching distance of the semi-finals.

Instead they have the following aspects to their game:

1/ 15 players on the pitch all capable of running with pace and power with the ball in hand. The numbers and positions are simply guidelines rather than hard and fast rules.

2/ An ability to score tries at will after losing a player to the sin-bin. In fact, the ten minutes the Fijians played with just 14 men saw them at their most dangerous.

A great game to watch, with nearly a third massive upset of the weekend. Perhaps the Scots will have been encouraged by these previous performances to get a result against Argentina in a match they should lose badly.